Posts Tagged ‘Fiber Etch’

I am having so much fun making little jeans for my daughter’s doll, her friends’ dolls, and for my Etsy shop but I wanted to try distressing jeans in a new way– with chemicals.

As a Liberty Jane customer, I have repeatedly seen mentions of a product called Denimolition. After searching the Joann Fabrics, Hancock Fabrics, Michael’s Crafts, independent craft and fabric stores in my area, Amazon, eBay, and googling for it, I have been unable to find it in stock… but I had been ‘sold’ on this idea and I wasn’t ready to give up!

I started trying to figure out what Denimoliton actually was when I stumbled onto Fiber Etch and the product info on the manufacturer’s site that grabbed my attention (click here to read).

If my memory is correct, Fiber Etch has been around a while– it was popular when many of us were experimenting with cutwork — or at least I think this was the chemical we used for silk and rayon velvet cutwork. It comes in a variety of bottle sizes, but I just wanted to experiment to see if this stuff would work on demin like the cute jeans on the Liberty Jane Jeans pattern. I found a 4 oz. bottle for around $10 from Dharma Trading (click here), a company from which I used to buy batik supplies.

I tried a sample of stretch denim to see what would happen. Fiber Etch only removes PLANT FIBERS and fabric blends with at least 50% plant fibers. (Plant fibers include cotton, rayon, ramie, linen, and paper). Silk and wool are protein fibers, so they are unaffected. Fiber Etch also will not affect 100% polyester, acrylic, nylon, or metallic (with a non-rayon core).

For this experiment and tutorial, I used demin from jeans that were 80% cotton, 18% poly, and 2% Spandex.

I started with poly/cotton/spandex blend jeans from a thrift store that I wanted to cut up into skinny jeans. Spandex (lycra) is a polyurethane plastic so I knew it would be unaffected by the chemical treatment.

I started with a small sample to see what would happen…

I applied the Fiber Etch per the paper instructions that were banded to the bottle and squeezed out the product then “scratched” it in using the applicator tip.

I dried the application with a blow dryer on high heat….

Then, using an iron on the ‘Cotton Setting’, I applied heat to the back of the fabric sample.

At this point, the area of the sample with the Fiber Etch on it has dried to a lighter color — almost whitish.

Next, I ran the fabric under water and lightly rubbed the application area to remove bits of treated fabric that were now brittle!

And voila!! It worked: the white Spandex threads remain but all the other fibers in the treated area are gone!

I quick-dried the sample with my iron. This was the finished sample:

This is the effect on this denim made into skinny jeans. I also used my rotary tool to scuff up the fabric and have a bit of fading:

Next, I made a pair of 100% cotton demim shorts and combined the Fiber Etch effects with my rotary tool’s brush. I love the effect. This demim started off as a very dark Perry Ellis “big fella” pair of jeans. I loved the results from this demim.

The local Goodwill store for the best variety of demin –and to help the community at the same time —and you can always drop off a donation while you are there!

Rotary Tool – you can find this at Target, Sears, KMart, Lowe’s…any place with a hand-tool section! Some folks call this a “dremel” but that is actually a brand of rotary tool.

Thank you for checking out my blog post today. For more crafty how-tos, check out my craft blog, With Glittering Eyes, where the focus is on papercrafting… along with sewing, jewelry-making, and silk screening! To see my American Girl doll clothes for sale, check out my Etsy Shop!